Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Bigger Is Better? Re-Evaluating Nato Enlargement In The Post-Cold War Period, Matthew Mccracken

Senior Honors Theses

Since the end of the Cold War, the North Atlantic Treaty Alliance has grown substantially from its pre-1990 boundary between the two Germanys to encompass 15 new members with its border pressing eastward toward the former Soviet states and up to Russia proper. At the same time, East-West relations have sunk from a high point in the 1990s to a new low unseen since the Cold War culminating in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Top-ranking officials on both sides of the Atlantic cautioned successive U.S. administrations against heedlessly seeking to admit new members into NATO for fear that it …

The Quest For Influence: Examining Russia's Public Diplomacy Mechanisms In Africa, Isaac Antwi-Boasiako

Articles

This article examines Russian public diplomacy mechanisms in Africa. These include the intentional use of historical ties, various aid programmes in education and health, the targeted use of international broadcasting and digital media, and the exploitation of anti-Western sentiments on the continent. Russia employs these to win the hearts and minds of African publics for its national interest. The article first explores Moscow’s public diplomacy in general and analyses the challenges Russia faces in Africa, which has become a ‘dumping ground’ for public diplomacy campaigns by the US, the EU and its members, the UK, and China. The article argues …

Bridging The Gap: Analyzing The History Of U.S.-Russian Relations Throughout History And The Actions That Would Improve Them, Coleman Anderson

Senior Honors Theses

After the onset of communism in Russia, relations between the United States and Russia have been tense up to the modern day. Even the fall of the Soviet Union could not usher in a permanent peace between the two countries, with mistrust pouring over from both parties. Utilizing both primary sources and commentary from subject matter experts, this paper argues that in order to achieve a legitimate and sustainable policy of peace between the United States and Russia, policymakers need to first understand the history and culture of the people they are reaching out to. Using this knowledge, policymakers can …

Recent U.S. And International Assessment Of Baltic Security Developments, Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

OBJECTIVES: The aim of this paper is to analyse Baltic security developments from U.S. government and military resources, scholarly journal articles, and multinational public policy research institute assessments. METHODS: The aim is to analyse the content and rhetoric within these resources to learn how those producing these materials view Baltic security developments and their viewpoints on how the U.S. and its allies should respond to these developments focusing on increasing Russian regional assertiveness. RESULTS: The author provides interpretations of Baltic security developments, Russian Baltic policy, and U.S. and NATO responses to these developments in materials produced by U.S. civilian and …

The Baltics And Ukraine: Geopolitical Hotspots, Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

Provides detailed historical overview and contemporary analysis on why the Baltics and Ukraine are historical and remain contemporary geopolitical hotspots. Provides analysis of cultural economic, environmental, and security factors influencing long-standing contentiousness over these regions. Places emphasis on how Russian behavior and policies influence this contentiousness. Concludes by noting that differences between the U.S. and its allies and conflicts within the U.S. Government may limit the ability of the U.S. to effectively respond to events in these disputed regions.

Quiet River, Heavy Waters: Un-Silencing Narratives Of Social-Environmental Inequalities In The Cradle Of Soviet Plutonium, Rosibel Roman

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In December 1948, the Soviet Union’s first plutonium production facility, Mayak Production Association (PO Mayak), began operation in the Southern Urals region of Russia, at the western edges of Siberia, near the restricted city of Chelyabinsk-40, known in the present day as Ozyorsk. Since then, rural communities located downstream from PO Mayak have experienced health, economic, ecological and social impacts of contamination from high-level radioactive wastes released by the facility into the Techa River and its surrounding ecosystem. My research, drawing from archival research conducted in Russia and the United States, as well as secondary sources in English and Russian, …

The Triad Of Nationality Revisited: The Orthodox Church And The State In Post-Soviet Russia, Robert D. Potts

Honors College

The Orthodox Church has been intimately wrapped up in the Russian state since Russia’s conversion to Christianity in 988. The relationship between the two is most succinctly wrapped up in Tsar Nicholas I’s so-called triad: “Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and Nationality.” This paper seeks to explain the manner in which the Orthodox Church reasserted itself as a force in Russian politics after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 up through the first administration of President Vladimir Putin. The church under Patriarch Alexy powerfully reinserted itself into affairs of state during the August 1991 coup attempt, while its relationship with the …

Feminism In Revolution: Women Of The 19th Century Anti-Tsarist Movements, Kayley Delong

Undergraduate Research Awards

The climate of political upheaval in Russia over the course of the 19th century reached a violent climax in the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in March of 1881. His death was the result of decades of civil unrest amongst Russian citizens who had taken hold of enlightenment ideas and sought justice for economic and social inequality. In a complex equation of issues and policies, the ways in which the women question combined with the surge of new ideas produced a unique and perfect storm. Russia was the epicenter of a collision between an underdeveloped infrastructure and changing philosophies about …

Hines, Clara Ursula (Wright) Nahm, 1904-1983 (Mss 561), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Collection 561. Personal diaries of Clara (Wright) Hines, Bowling Green, Kentucky, kept during her marriage to food critic Duncan Hines and after his death. Includes some correspondence, travel itineraries, and miscellaneous papers.

Chinese, Russian, And U.S. Space Warfare And Defense Developments, Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Creative Materials

Provides information on the historical development and evolution of Chinese, Russian, and U.S. military space programs from 1985-2015. Places particular emphasis on the multiple U.S. Government agencies involved in military space programs.

Assassination Of Boris Nemtsov, Mark Mccarthy

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

"Understanding the death of Boris Yefimovich Nemtsov, the former Deputy Prime Minister of Russia."

Posting about the assassination of Boris Nemtsov from In All Things - an online hub committed to the claim that the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ has implications for the entire world.

http://inallthings.org/the-assassination-of-boris-nemtsov

War, Fields, And Competing Economies Of Death. Lessons From The Blockade Of Leningrad, Jeffrey K. Hass

Sociology and Anthropology Faculty Publications

War can create a massive amount of death while also straining the capacity of states and civilians to cope with disposing of the dead. This paper argues that such moments exacerbate contradictions between three fields and “economies” (logics of interaction and exchange) – a political, market, and moral economy of disposal – in which order and control, commodification and opportunism, and dignity are core logics. Each logic and economy, operating in its own field, provides an interpretation of the dead that emerges from field logics of normal organization, status, and meanings of subjects (as legal entities, partners in negotiation, and …

New Matriarchs: Louisville, Kentucky (Fa 768), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

FA Finding Aids

Finding aid and representative photographs for Folklife Archives Project 768. The collection details the lives of seven women from around the globe (India, Syria, Mexico, Uganda, Russia, Argentina, and Somalia),all recent immigrants to Louisville, Kentucky.

Ethnicity: Contemporary Ethnicity In The Inner Bluegrass (Fa 601), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

FA Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Foklife Arhives Project 601. Collection of materials related to Ethnicity, a project documenting ethnic heritage in the inner Bluegrass, sponsored by The Living Arts and Science Center, the Kentucky Folklife Program of the Kentucky Historical Society, and the Lexington Public Library. This collection includes audio and written transcripts of those interviews. Also included are various administrative and program related papers.

American Association Of University Women - Bowling Green, Kentucky (Sc 727), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid and scan (Click on "additional files" below) for Mansucripts Small Collection 727. Letters, 1949-52 (14), written to Sibyl Stonecipher, WKU professor, Bowling Green, Kentucky, from a Displaced
Person in Germnay, Aina Raits, whose family was adopted by the Bowling Green Branch. Letters relating the same, 1949, 1976 (2), and photos of Raits’ family (2).

Labor Culture: Labor Morality Under Socialism, Vladimir Magun

Russian Culture

Soviet leaders had always taken a keen interest in workers' behavior and labor motives and sought to keep labor morality under strict state control. A complex network of values and regulations was developed for this purpose after the October Revolution of 1917. They were best articulated in the "political economy of socialism" which purported to present a scientific picture of the country's economic life. Textbooks on socialist economy were widely circulated in the Soviet Union and appropriate courses included into a core curriculum for all higher education institutions in the country. Basic tenets of socialist political economy were taught in …

Psychological Culture: Ambivalence And Resistance To Social Change, Alexander Etkind

Russian Culture

"National character," "modal personality," "collective unconscious," "ethnic mentality," "cultural identity" -- these and similar notions are designed to capture psychological traits that distinguish one social group from another. Attempts to isolate such hypothetical qualities are not different in principle from efforts to describe religious, legal, or other social patterns found among people who have lived together for a length of time, except that psychological constructs tend to focus on subjective characteristics and are somewhat harder to identify. For the first time, the link between culture and psychology came under close scrutiny in the nineteen century. German linguists Steinthal and Lazarus …

The Intelligentsia Without Revolution: The Culture Of The Silver Age, Andrei Ariev

Russian Culture

The most effective definition of "the intelligentsia" might read: “Russian intellectuals who are generally opposed to the government.” But even Russia’s traditionally powerful government has collapsed at times, leaving a vacuum of authority. This was precisely the historical situation at the beginning of the twentieth century. It made an indelible impression both upon thinkers, such as Rozanov, and on politicians, such as Lenin.

Russian Federation, Jeffrey K. Hass

Sociology and Anthropology Faculty Publications

The Russian political system remains subject to sudden radical change--this has been the basic logic of its political history since 1985. Only by understanding the processes and logics of that recent history of change can one understand the present and the (possibly radically different) future.

In December 1991 Boris Yeltsin, president of the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic (the USSR's largest republic, known as RSFSR), joined Stanislav Shushkevich of Belarus and Leonid Kravchuk of Ukraine in dissolving the Soviet Union and replacing it with the ill-defined Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). The RSFSR was transformed into the Russian Federation, and …

Post-Communist Russia And Anti-Americanism: Has The West Lost Russian Public Opinion?, Stephen M. Brown

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

Post-Communist Russia’s place in the international system has constituted a matter of intense academic interest since the end of the Cold War. In 2006, the relationship between the West and Russia cooled markedly in response to changing political alliances among the successor states of the former Soviet Union and Russia’s alleged use of its oil and gas resources for political purposes. Richard Pipes has warned that the West should not trust Russia because both its political elites and public opinion are hostile to Western values. This paper will argue that public opinion in Russia has been, and remains, mostly favourable …

Schmitt, Kimberly Anne (Fa 84), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

FA Finding Aids

Finding aid and full-text scan of paper (Click on “Additional Files” below) for Folklife Archives Project 84 titled “A Life History of Mania Ritter” which includes interviews conducted by Schmitt with John and Mania Ritter. Mania Ritter discusses her Russian heritage, her experiences in French boarding schools and her life in France during World War II. Includes indexes, interviews on cassette tapes, transcriptions, as well as a paper describing a portion of the interviews. The interviews have been digitized and are in the WKU Sound Archives. The transcripts

are also located in TopSCHOLAR.

The Russo-Polish War, 1919-1920: A Bibliography Of Materials In English, John A. Drobnicki

Publications and Research

As World War I came to an end, the borders in Central and Eastern Europe were tenuous, and in some cases non-existent, and several countries came into territorial conflict. The battle between Poland and the Soviet Union was a pivotal event in twentieth century history, as Poland not only dealt the Red Army its first defeat, but also greatly expanded the territory of the fledgling Polish Republic to its historic, pre-partition borders.

Review Of The Book Russia’S Retreat From Poland, 1920: From Permanent-Revolution To Peaceful Coexistence, John A. Drobnicki

Publications and Research

Book review of Russia’s retreat from Poland, 1920: From permanent-revolution to peaceful coexistence.

Interview With Mania Ivanov Ritter (Fa 84), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

FA Oral Histories

Transcription of interview with Mania Ivanov Ritter conducted by Kimberly Anne Schmitt on 13 May 1988. From folk studies student project concerning Ritter discussing her Russian heritage, her experiences in French boarding schools and her life in France during World War II.

Interview With John Arthur Ritter (Fa 84), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

FA Oral Histories

Transcription of interview with John Arthur Ritter conducted by Kimberly Anne Schmitt on 11 May 1988. From folk studies student project concerning his wife Mania Ritter discussing her Russian heritage, her experiences in French boarding schools and her life in France during World War II.

Interview With Mania Ivanov Ritter (Fa 84), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

FA Oral Histories

Transcription of interview with Mania Ivanov Ritter conducted by Kimberly Anne Schmitt on 10 May 1988. From folk studies student project concerning Ritter discussing her Russian heritage, her experiences in French boarding schools and her life in France during World War II.

Interview With Mania Ivanov Ritter (Fa 84), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

FA Oral Histories

Transcription of interview with Mania Ivanov Ritter conducted by Kimberly Anne Schmitt on 4 March 1988. From folk studies student project concerning Ritter discussing her Russian heritage, her experiences in French boarding schools and her life in France during World War II.

Interview With Mania Ivanov Ritter (Fa 84), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

FA Oral Histories

Transcription of interview with Mania Ivanov Ritter conducted by Kimberly Anne Schmitt on 18 February 1988. From folk studies student project concerning Ritter discussing her Russian heritage, her experiences in French boarding schools and her life in France during World War II.

4. Lenin, Robert L. Bloom, Basil L. Crapster, Harold L. Dunkelberger, Charles H. Glatfelter, Richard T. Mara, Norman E. Richardson, W. Richard Schubart

Section XVI: Developments in Socialism, 1848-1914

Marx' theory of revolutionary tactics, moreover, could not easily be applied to Russian conditions. After the revolutions of 1848 he had abandoned reliance on small, secret societies aimed at the immediate seizure of power, holding that they could not be successful without popular understanding and support. The task, as he saw it, involved long-range preparations in which educating the working classes had to take precedence over organizing for violence. Consequently, Marx favored the creation of large political parties, functioning openly. Such an approach presupposed a relatively benign political environment, such as that of England. Where ideas could not be circulated …